William Booth and others started their campaign for social reform in 1888 along with Barnardo. This book reviews the contemporary sources; books, papers, journals and official publications; to produce a picture of how the people in the East of London lived. These were the lowest of the low, the dregs who were punished for sleeping on the streets - even though they had no place to go. Slave labour and sweat houses were rife with conditions we would only now tolerate in dance clubs - packed together and far too hot.

This was a great book. I couldn't put it down from the moment I began reading. It made me angry in the beginning and happy at the end. It showed the growth of all the characters, including the children.Normally I probably wouldn't have picked this up because of the subject matter, but anything Rex Denver writes is usually good. Pick this one up if you like a page turner!

I always thought an illustrated book had photos.
The copy I got had one (on the cover).
I had another book by this author and it was great.
Maybe I got a pre run copy but I sent this one back because I wanted to see the illustrations!!!!!!
This was as tough to digest as a vegamite sandwich.

I loved this book.
It has all the background for the New York teams rivalry and some terrific inside explanations on why things happened.
It's one of those books you hate to finish.
I wish it could go on and on.
Nice profiles of players and great photos .

I hunted for a high quality of map of the New York City region, and this was the best I could find. Most maps are Manhattan only, and I needed detailed coverage of the wider area to consider some commuting/apartment-hunting issues. Other maps are made from dreadfully old drawings -- when you see those sharp new images in travel guides etc, they are dramatically more readable and clearly drawn than the ancient looking draftings in most of the map books I looked at. Other maps don't offer enough perspective--all close-up detail, but no "big picture" pages to give you a sense for how they hook up. Finally, most books have a lousy format--hard to hold open, or poor binding, etc.

This book at least covers the 5-boroughs, but totally excludes the nearby NJ areas, Westchester or Nassau. It also doesn't offer enough big picture regional info-- the subway map is Manhattan-only, the regional highway map doesn't offer a close-up of how to get in/out of Manhattan, there are no "medium-scale" maps that show how the huge chunks of ultra-detailed Queens all link together. The drafting is old but pretty readable. They chose odd landmarks to put in and exclude. The book is sturdy enough, but the giant spiral binding ruins the middle section of every page! There is surely a more elegant way to lay out the map around the spiral. Good luck finding Little Italy intersections or downtown Brooklyn addresses or many other key locations. What terrible corner-cutting with that one. Where is the Thomas Brothers guide for NYC...?

This is an excellent reference manuel when traveling within the tri-state area. My husband referred to this book daily as a courier. I need one to send with my boss when he has business meetings in NY, NJ and CT and know that he will be able to find his way there and back again. He doesn't like Mapquest's little maps. He wants his directions easy to follow, clear as a bell and indexed in the back of the book. This book is really the best source book for our area.

There are many wonderful things about this book: the maps are beautifully designed and easy to read; the drawings are lovely and truly capture the spirit of the neighborhoods; and the food glossary is very good. But the content vastly oversimplifies the neighborhoods - and thus shortchanges the reader - and in some cases the suggested walking routes seem dubious. Since I also write about food and have led bicycle and walking tours in the neighborhoods since 1983, I am perhaps hypercritical about this type of information, but I feel that readers are entitled to accuracy and, for those intrepid enough to do the tours the author lays out, the best possible experience. Frankly, I had to wonder how thoroughly the author actually cased out the areas she wrote about; she often writes as if she is in a huge hurry! In some instances, she lists a few food items you'll find in a restaurant or market, but I was curious about whether she'd actually tried the items she mentioned! (No, it's not necessary to try everything - but it would be nice to have some anecdotes about the eating experience.) Her portrayal of Astoria, Queens, as a Greek neighborhood overlooks the fact that Astoria is much more ethnically complex (including south Asian, Eastern European and Latin American), and has several blocks of Egyptian cafes and markets - unique in NYC. Her recommended walking tour of Harlem includes two blocks of 124th Street - an ugly stretch in an otherwise landmarked area - and some wrong information, i.e. Apollo Theater is incorrectly marked. I don't know how much editorial oversight the author had on the maps, but these errors are misleading. Books like these are hard to do well - information changes even as the books are being written and are in production. But misinformation or inadequate information reflects less than thorough research.

This spiral-bound atlas is the book form of the Rand-McNally fold-out paper map (not to be confused with the EasyFinder laminated map, which has less coverage). Over half the pages are dedicated to the street index. One inch equals a half mile in this atlas, versus .7 mile to the inch on the fold-out paper version.

The atlas format makes it hard to get a "big picture" perspective of New York, but this format will be ideal for those locating minor residential streets in the outer boroughs. There is nothing here on commuter trains or the subway; this is not for tourists. Tourists will be better served by the hard-to-find "Hagstrom 5 maps in 1" fold-out map (not the atlas).

I probably should give this book one star because it goes against everything the Dodgers were about--The Dodgers signal triumph"sociologically" was that they showed that private places both exclusive and inclusive make for a healthy community. A healthy community is not driven by ism's or explicit ideology--rather it is driven by the triumphs and mistakes of ordinary men any women. Women "liberated" McSorley's bar.We are poorer for that Ebbets field provided a real chance for community conversation and for neighborhood stability--a chance that Robert Moses destroyed--that destruction produced a "culture" of which this author is a product.

This addition to the considerable literature about the Brooklyn Dodgers of 1947-1957 is by an academic historian who seeks to place the Dodgers within the broader social and political context of the era. The book captures the atmospherics of the time with a mostly credible and readable account of one of the great teams of all time.
Academic history today means race, gender, class and some of that in this context seems a bit forced. There certainly is an important race story here in the person of Jackie Robinson. The author, consistent with the academic perspective, has difficulty coming to grips with both Robinson's and Dodger General Manager Branch Rickey's support of integration with their views on the Cold War. This reader did not find it unusual that people opposed to the Soviet Union would also support, and take considerable risks in supporting, integration in baseball. Much of the race angle in this volume is familiar territory. Some which is not familiar is questionable. The author brands a player of the era, later a prominent broadcaster, as a racist and does so on what appears to be very thin evidence - a not unusual on the field scrape with Robinson. Similarly forced, on the gender angle, is the characterization of the colorful Dodger fan Hilda Chester as a "single mother", even though her child was an adult. That women were vastly outnumbered by men watching baseball games in bars in the 1950s seems to have little to do with the Dodgers.
The author's best point is his explanation of why the hatred of Walter O'Malley has lasted though successive generations, a phenomena not associated with other franchise moves. The Reason: the Dodger move did not just re-locate a baseball team, it destroyed a distinct culture, which is probably the best explanation.
There are some factual errors in the book, one of them particularly surprising coming from an academic American historian. Perhaps the aversion to "right wing" politicians explains it. In 1952, Richard Nixon made a TV speech which came to be known as the "Checkers" speech - it saved his career in the face of charges of fiscal impropriety. Checkers was a dog given to Nixon's daughters as a gift. The author asserts that the dog was present on the TV set as Nixon gave the speech. That did not occur.
The author also attempts to "deconstruct" the common wisdom about Dodger pitcher Billy Loes. Loes had the reputation as something of a flake, but the author asserts that he was a chess-playing intellect who knew exactly what he was doing. The account given here has Loes planning to make enough money in five years and then quit, having made his fortune and "that is exactly how long his career lasted". The deconstruction does not stand up. Loes' major league career lasted eleven years.
For those who cannot get enough of Dodger literature, this short volume is worth reading if only to see how an academic would view the story. Those who want to read just one book on the subject should stick to Roger Kahn's classic The Boys of Summer or Peter Golenbock's Bums.